By Day One Way
by Little Kate
Summary: UPDATED 6-12-04: Spinelli beats up on people more than normal, forcing her friends to abandon her, wondering what's wrong with her. But there can be only one explanation - Spinelli is changing...
1. The Perfect Week

By Day One Way  
  
By KTBelle and Tallie V'nessa  
  
AN: This fic was started by Tallie V'nessa, who asked me to write it for her. The ideas and plot are entirely hers, the words, mine, and the characters, Disney's. Tallie asked me to note that this fic was inspired by a line from Shrek: "By day one way, by night another, until you find true love's first kiss..." I promise that I'll get MEG out ASAP and stop stalling, and for all those maniacal Harry Potter fans awaiting the rest of my HP fanfic... I'M SORRY!!  
  
Chapter 1 - The Perfect Week  
  
"What'd you call me, punk?" Ashley Spinelli bristled, brandishing her fists in the face of a fellow fifth-grader by the name of Gordy, whom was shaking in fear and backing slowly away from the outraged girl.  
  
"I-I-I d-didn't s-say a-anything," Gordy sputtered, staring apprehensively at the white, unpleasant knuckles on Spinelli's fist.  
  
"Oh really?" Spinelli scorned, fury radiating off of her like heat from the sun. "What about `Spinelli is meant to be the fifth Ashley'?" Spinelli demanded, catching the neck of Gordy's t-shirt and drawing her fist closer to his face.  
  
"I-I-I m-meant it a-as a j-joke," Gordy stammered nervously, his eyes still not leaving the gruesome fist traveling closer and closer. A terrified little voice sounded in Gordy's head. "Five seconds to impact..."  
  
"Well I've got news for you, Gordy," Spinelli responded, her voice dangerously sarcastic. "I didn't take it as a joke." Realizing his time on earth was almost through, Gordy squinted his eyes shut and prepared for the knockout. But it didn't come.  
  
"Let go!" Spinelli screeched harshly, apparently still dead set on making Gordy tomorrow's mashed potatoes. Gordy cautiously opened his eyes to see Spinelli being held back by T.J. Detweiler and Vince La Salle. "Let me go!" Spinelli repeated, her command even more shrill than the last.  
  
"C'mon, Spinelli," Vince answered sternly. "Why are you picking on Gordy, anyway?"  
  
"You heard what he said about me being the fifth Ashley!" Spinelli yelled, struggling to get away from Vince and T.J.'s firm grip.  
  
"That doesn't mean you have to kill the kid, Spinelli," T.J. replied. "Go on, Gordy, get outta here."  
  
Gordy breathed heavily a sigh of relief. "Gee, thanks, T.J."  
  
"Don't mention it," T.J. nodded, tightening his grip on Spinelli's right arm as she fought to break loose. Once Gordy was gone, hidden in one of the concrete tunnels and sandwiched between his friends, T.J. and Vince simultaneously let go.  
  
Spinelli shook herself off, her anger receding now that her name-caller had left. "I still got it in for that little punk," she muttered.  
  
"Why're you being a jerk today, Spinelli?" T.J. asked, frankly fed-up with his scrapper of a friend.  
  
"Forget today," Vince replied, folding his arms. "It's been like this all week."  
  
"Yeah, no kidding," T.J. concurred. "I mean, three of the Ashleys, Lawson, King Freddy, and now Gordy? What's bothering you, Spinelli?"  
  
"Nothing is bothering me, T.J.," Spinelli replied, teeth clenched. She started to walk away from her friends.  
  
"Then stop being a jerk and trying to kill kids!" Vince exclaimed after her, also fed up. Her anger sparked once more, Spinelli turned back to Vince and T.J.  
  
"Is that what you really think of me? That I'm a jerk?" she demanded, eyeing each of them suspiciously, her voice soft and treacherous.  
  
T.J. was brave enough to speak. "Well, this whole week certainly falls into that category," he said, more bravely than he felt. Spinelli approached him. Something about the way he said that, the way he was looking at her, made her feel angrier than she'd ever been with anyone. Feeling that surging electric adrenaline pulsating through her, Spinelli's right arm shot out and connected so sickeningly hard with T.J.'s face that she could instantly feel his blood. She withdrew, horrorstruck, and watched desperately, helpless, as T.J.'s nose ran red.  
  
He gingerly touched the painful sore spot on his nose where Spinelli had socked him, and in an instant his fingers were slick with his own blood. Spinelli gasped.  
  
"Vince, I need tissue, and lots of it," T.J. ordered his friend, who was staring bewilderedly at his nose. Vince hurried off into the school, probably to gather a roll of paper toweling and alert Finster about Spinelli.  
  
"T-teej, I-I'm so sorry," Spinelli apologized. "I-I d-didn't mean to..."  
  
"No, obviously, you did mean to," T.J. cut her off, fury shining in his deep blue eyes. "You wouldn't do this if you didn't mean to."  
  
"B-but--"  
  
"Here's another person to add to your perfect week," T.J. continued cruelly. "I've had it with you beating up every single person who makes a single comment about you, and I know the rest of the gang is, too!"  
  
"Teej," Spinelli pleaded, feeling tears she had not felt in a very long time come to her eyes.  
  
"Until you can decide to calm yourself down, you can find somebody else to hold you back when you're two seconds away from murdering a kid," T.J. finished, wiping his nose delicately on his sleeve and heading toward the school building.  
  
Feeling as though her very life had been sucked from her body, Spinelli sank onto one of the picnic benches where she had nearly pounded Gordy. Within mere seconds, it seemed like; Murielle Finster was casting a luminous shadow over the small girl.  
  
"I thought I'd never see the day. Little Spinelli, rounding on her closest friends," Finster mocked, pulling Spinelli to her feet by her elbow. "Maybe some detention will teach you to think twice before giving a kid a bloody nose." Head down, Spinelli followed Finster into the school building, while the hated enemies of Spinelli's jeered at her. Spinelli hardly cared. She had just lost the only people alive that knew who she really was; and that in itself was worse than any ridicule.  
  
Meanwhile, T.J. sat watching out the window of Nurse Kraemer's office, holding an ice pack wrapped in tissues to his nose, as Spinelli went into the school after a particularly smug-looking Finster. Feeling somewhat upset at himself that he'd yelled at Spinelli, T.J. sighed and turned to the rest of the gang.  
  
"Guys, I just ended my friendship with one of the first people I ever cared about," T.J. commented gloomily.  
  
Mikey Blumberg put a comforting yet heavy hand on his friend's shoulder. "It had to be done, T.J.," Mikey consoled.  
  
"I know, Mikey," T.J. agreed heavily, "but I just wish there was another way to change her." 


	2. Give It A Little Time

Chapter 2 - Give It A Little Time  
  
Ashley Spinelli, solo, trudged home late that Friday afternoon. After being assigned to Level Six detention, which kept her an unmerciful hour after school, she didn't have any friends to complain about her misfortune to.  
  
No, her friends had all gotten fed up with the black haired Italian's scrappiness that week, but had not done any acting upon it until Spinelli had lost her legendary temper on one of her best friends and her secret crush, T.J. Detweiler. She'd socked him in the face, giving him a bloody nose and one very good reason to dismiss her from his life.  
  
Spinelli, gloomy, stood on the sidewalk in front of her house, facing T.J.'s, whose was only three houses away from hers. His older sister, Becky, had just pulled into the driveway in her family's woody-wagon, and waved to Spinelli. Spinelli good-naturedly returned the wave, but couldn't put a smile on over her gloom.  
  
Spinelli trudged into her house, muttering a "hi" to her mother, Flo Spinelli, who immediately noticed her daughter's lateness and downcast mood. Knowing well enough that her Ashley was moody and upset, Flo decided to wait until later to talk to Ashley about her scrappiness of late.  
  
Flo came upstairs two hours later and found her daughter sprawled out on her bed, face down. "Ashley?" Flo said, stepping cautiously into the room. When Spinelli didn't respond, Flo continued. "Ashley, honey? What's wrong? Lately you've been moody and I've been getting calls from the school that you're scrapping again. Today it was for making T.J. bleed. Pookie, what's wrong?"  
  
Spinelli rolled over to face her mother, her face stained with her tears. "I don't know what made me do it, Mom," she said. "I just punched him, and now he won't talk to me. And everybody else... they've just been making me mad lately."  
  
"Oh honey," Flo sympathized. "I know what it's like to get upset at your age. When I was in fifth grade, everything upset me. Just because my friend Susan told me she didn't like a shirt of mine I never wanted to come back to school."  
  
Spinelli wiped her eyes. "Really?"  
  
"Yes really. This is perfectly normal behavior of a girl your age," Flo said. "Although your father and I would appreciate it if you would try to keep your fists to yourself tomorrow at school."  
  
"Okay," Spinelli replied. "Mom?"  
  
"Yes, dear?"  
  
"What happens if this doesn't stop? What happens if I always feel like this?"  
  
"You won't, honey. This sort of thing passes," Flo explained. "When you're a little older, you'll get this sort of thing every month. It's called PMS."  
  
Spinelli giggled. "Last year Ms. Grotke went through the whole puberty thing with us."  
  
"So my job is done," Flo joked.  
  
Spinelli sighed. "I'm just worried that the guys won't ever talk to me again. What if I pushed it too far?"  
  
"Oh, Pookie, your friends will understand. Especially Gretchen. After all, she's a girl, is she not?"  
  
"But what about T.J.? Maybe punching him was too much. Maybe he ran out of patience with me and doesn't want anything to do with me," Spinelli lamented.  
  
"Pookie, T.J. will forgive you. Sure, he'll be mad for a little while that you punched him, but he'll still be the good friend he's been to you. Just give it a little time, and things will turn out right."  
  
Spinelli sighed again. "I sure hope so, Mom."  
  
Flo stood up. "Good night, sweetheart."  
  
Spinelli rolled over and fell into a fitful, dark sleep, dreaming about how lost she'd be if T.J. didn't forgive her. 


	3. The Cold Shoulder

Spinelli stepped off the bus and looked around at her peers. They saw her and whispered behind their hands to each other, but Spinelli heard what they were saying. "Do you think it's true? That Detweiler really kicked her out of the group?"  
  
Trying to keep the pain off of her face, Spinelli slowly made her way to the cheesebox, where her friends, or ex-friends, stood whispering. She heard her name several times before speaking up.  
  
"Hi guys, uh, can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked. They looked at her, then turned back to each other and continued to whisper. "Can I at least talk to Gretchen? My mom said she'd understand," Spinelli said.  
  
"Go on, Gretch," T.J. said. "If it'll get her to leave us alone." T.J.'s coldness made Spinelli shudder. Reluctantly, Gretchen stood up and came over to Spinelli, the look on her face as cold as T.J.'s words.  
  
"What do you want?" she said.  
  
"Gretch," Spinelli said, her voice sounding panicky before she could stop it, "I'm changing."  
  
"Obviously it's a change for the worse," Gretchen bit angrily. "You had no right to hit T.J. like that!"  
  
Spinelli hung her head in shame. "I know," she conceded. "But, Gretch--"  
  
"They're all furious with you, Spinelli," Gretchen continued. "And so am I. You could have broken his nose! I think you'd do well to stay far away until we all cool off."  
  
"Gretch, I'm not done," Spinelli protested. She paused, took a breath, and continued. "Last night I talked to my mom about why I feel so angry lately--"  
  
"Lately?" Gretchen scoffed.  
  
"Gretch, you know what I mean. Anyway... I think she thinks I might be growing."  
  
"So?"  
  
"I mean... you know that puberty thing Ms. Grotke was talking about last year? Well, my mom thinks I may be, uh, getting there, and she said you'd understand."  
  
"Well I just can't understand why you'd act like this," Gretchen replied. "And I don't want to understand. Spinelli, our friendship is over!"  
  
"Gretch!" Spinelli protested.  
  
"Save it, Spinelli. Your words will fall on deaf ears," Gretchen snapped as she pranced away.  
  
"At least do me one more favor," Spinelli called, defeated.  
  
"What?" Gretchen called back.  
  
"Let me talk to T.J." Gretchen waved her hand dismissively, but said something to T.J., who, looking angry, stood up and came over to Spinelli.  
  
"What do you want?" he repeated Gretchen in the same icy tone.  
  
"Well, I wanted to apologize," Spinelli replied quietly. "And ask you to forgive me."  
  
"Why should I?" T.J. snipped. "You nearly broke my nose, and you expect me just to forgive you?"  
  
"No, I'm not," Spinelli replied. "But it never hurts to ask."  
  
T.J. humphed, but let Spinelli continue. "I just wanted to say, T.J., that no matter what you think about me, I'll always..."  
  
"Always what?" he prodded, looking midly curious.  
  
"Always love you, T.J." Spinelli replied, her own words suprising her. "I love you, and nothing will change that."  
  
For some odd reason, T.J. looked smug. "So sorry I can't return your affections," he replied oily, his voice full of sarcasm, "but I've got a new love in my life."  
  
"What?" Spinelli demanded. To her horror and shock, Ashley A slid up to T.J., putting her arm around his waist. He took her affectionately into his arms, and before Spinelli knew quite what was happening, the new couple was making out right in front of her. As the world around Spinelli dissolved, she felt a sensation come back to her she'd not felt since she was seven years old... Ashley Spinelli had wet herself. 


	4. New Discovery

"Pookie, wake up. Pookie? Pookie, wake up!"  
  
"Wha—?" Spinelli cracked an eye open, catching a blurry glimpse of the Senor Fusion poster staring at her from the ceiling. Slowly, her eyes came into focus and she recognized her surroundings – she was in her bedroom.  
  
"Time for school, Ashley!" Flo singsonged, throwing the curtains open in Spinelli's room. The small girl flinched at the light, shifting onto her side, away from her mother's voice. The motion jolted her senses into action, and she shivered, covered in a cold sweat.  
  
The shift also drew her attention to an alien feeling of wetness between her legs, and she sprang to her feet immediately, face flushed in embarrassment. She pulled back her comforter, expecting to see a patch of wet, but the sight that met her eyes was foreign to her eyes. "Mom?" she managed, rendered nearly speechless.  
  
Flo saw her daughter leap out of bed as though her teddy bear had turned into a porcupine, and immediately it piqued her curiosity. Her Ashley wasn't an early riser – that was an understatement. She looked over Ashley's shoulder and noticed a patch of red the size of a tea saucer staining the white Senor Fusion-emblazoned sheets.  
  
"Oh my God," Flo gasped, eyes widening. She rubbed her eyes but the sight remained the same. It couldn't be, could it? Her nine-year-old wasn't already menstruating, was she?  
  
"Ashley, go to the bathroom. Take a shower. A long one. Use all the hot water. Scrub good." Eyes never leaving the stained sheets, Flo pushed her daughter toward the door. Without a question, without a word, Spinelli bolted.  
  
Flo stripped the sheets and hurried to the laundry room to treat the stain. She filled the laundry room sink with cold water and left the soiled sheets to soak. She hurried to her bathroom and grabbed a fair amount of women's toiletries and headed to her daughter's bathroom. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for the talk.  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
The pad felt like a diaper.  
  
It itched, it stratched, it irritated Spinelli to no end. As she plopped down in the backseat of her mother's station wagon, she fought the urge to stratch. She shifted around in the seat, looking for a comfortable position to sit in, but there wasn't one.  
  
Spinelli scowled and shifted again, to no improvement. She vaguely wondered how she was going to go a whole school day wearing one of these stupid diapers.  
  
Her mother got in and started the car, sending a glance back at her daughter. Flo honestly hadn't expected Ashley to begin menstruation for another three or four years, like most girls. She only hoped that Ashley's period was a fluke – sometimes they started, and then stalled – and she hoped for her daughter's sake that the cycle stalled.  
  
Flo knew, from eighteen years of experience, that periods were a pain.  
  
Since the newest arrival in the Spinelli household had caused a ruckus, Spinelli would surely be late if she walked to school as normal. Besides, she hadn't been feeling up to facing T.J. alone the morning after she'd socked him in the nose – and aside from that, she was still having horrid flashbacks from the dream she'd woken up to. Flo had decided to drive her to school, to save her from being late.  
  
Spinelli sulked the whole ride, trying to get comfortable with the newest addition to her undergarments. She'd barely gotten passably comfortable when the car slowed to a stop in front of Third Street School.  
  
Grabbing her backpack, Spinelli bade her mother a cross good-bye and stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking up at the school's big yellow walls. For the first time in a long time, Spinelli dreaded being there.  
  
The pad itched again as she started her walk toward the building.  
  
"How am I going to explain this?" she wondered.  
  
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Author's Note: Since I have no recollection of who Tallie V'nessa is (unless she would like to identify herself for my sake), I'm no longer crediting this fic to her. If it were that important, she would have bugged me to finish it a long time ago. Hope you all like this chapter – I tried to keep the description of the rag as un-gross as possible, for the guys. 


End file.
